A Second Birthday

I certain squiggly boy's 2nd birthday finally brought me out of my sewing funk of the last few weeks.  I'd been kinda feeling sick and had no motivation to do anything but sit on the couch for the last while, but thankfully I think I'm feeling inspired again!  Thanks at least partly to the couple little projects I completed for little M's b-day!

I had wanted to start a few little traditions for his birthday.  The first of which was to make a birthday bunting that could be brought out every year.

I used this tutorial, and was able to us bits from the piles of boyish cotton I have, plus felt for the circle and letters (the tutorial uses all fabric).

Second tradition was to make him a birthday crown.  For this I used this tutorial for most of it (main pattern and elastic back directions) but did my own decorations.  I wanted his initial to make it his and added the two stars, one for each birthday year.  I'll add one for each year as he ages.  Well until he won't have anything to do with wearing it!

And again I made cupcakes.  Love this recipe.  Still pretty sugary, but the beets make them seem healthier (and nice and moist!).

And to round out recent sewing related activities, I got new books today!  Thanks to my lovely neighbours who brought me back from Japan these 4 Japanese pattern books!  Soo much cheaper than getting them imported here!  I'd better finally try something from them!  I have two others my dear husband bought me for my birthday as well.  I'm not too intimidated by the directions, just more by the pattern sheets!

And finally Happy Mother's day to my North American followers, hope you had a great day!  It was gorgeous here!

Spring KCWC Days 1-4

Finally finished my first projects for KCWC, they've been mostly done since yesterday, but I just put the finishing touches on them tonight and attempted to take photos of them on my squiggly almost 2 year old... See photo evidence below!

So after seeing numerous cute version of this pattern, I finally bought it and made it!  The Sailboat top and pants are actually my first time working with an Oliver + S pattern, and I totally understand why people rave about them!  Very straightforward and cute!  The pants seemed complicated at first look, but the totally are not!

The only maybe tricker part is all the button holes that need to be made.  While I have pretty well figured out the buttonhole functions on my machine, I'm still not 100% happy with their appearance.  And you'll notice I went all crazy and sewed them both up in red thread!  Does it work? I think so!

I attempted to do some adjustments to the sizing for my skinny shortish kid, with some success.  I made the shirt in 12-18 month width with a 2T length (I dislike short shirts!) and it worked.

The pants were the 18-24 month size, but the 3T length (I'm expecting him to growth spurt soon, and in the meantime I like the idea of the pants not being cropped.  I figure by the summer they'll be shorter, which will be perfect! but for now they are just long enough to be ok in the still sometimes chilly weather up here.  I will need to take in the back elastic on the pants, but other than that, they fit pretty good!

And finally the fabric!  The pants accent fabric and the shirt fabric are from Sarah Jane's Children at Play collection.  I had only bought a 1/2 yard of the shirt fabric, not initially intending for this, but I was pretty proud of my myself for cutting the whole shirt out of it, with the exception of one of the bottom facings!  The pattern calls for a least a yard!  My mother would be proud, she's always been the master of cutting things out of the least amount of fabric!  Maybe it's her Dutchness, but it definitely rubbed of!

So what shall I make next for KCWC?  I need to go figure that out!

Soul Blossom Mariposa Tee

After some distractions such as emergency roof repairs and planned foundation repairs, I finally was able to finish my second top for Made by Rae's Spring Top Sew-along.

I've been wanting to sew more with knits, and the Mariposa Tee by Meg of Sew Liberated seemed a good fit.  A cute way to add some splash of pattern and colour!  When I bought the pattern I scoured internet sewing land for other examples, but only one appeared, which is too bad as it is a neat pattern. (I'll add though that as of yesterday another version totally showed up in Rae's Spring Top Sewing-along pool, finally, yay!)

Anyway, back to my top.  It's made from a piece of organic t-shirt knit I bought on sale last summer.  The accents fabrics are 2 different Amy Butler prints from her Soul Blossoms collection.  Originally used to make Christmas gifts.  I put some serious effort into centring the tulip flower on the back piece seem below as well as the front side pieces, worth it I think!

I made the 0-2 size for my skinny self, but cut the length to the largest size as I suspected it would have been to short with out it (I have a pretty long torso)  And i think the sizing works.  It's definitely meant to be a floaty unfitted top, which will be be super nice and cool for the summer!

So while the pattern isn't hard per-se, I found it pretty finicky.  It was somewhat tricky to get all the little accent pieces, pressed nicely and lined up correctly when sewing.  The inside of the front piece was particularly tricky as one could imagine.  But it worked out, it's just isn't what I would consider a quick sew.

Uh oh! please excuse the visible thread in the above photo, but I thought I'd show you a detail and all the top stitching, which isn't completly bad :)  Also, I didn't have the steam a seam stuff the pattern tells you to use to but the two pieces of the sleeve together, I just top stitched them together which seemed to work fine.

One last awkward pose to end the post!  And now I now I think I might start back on prepping to sew some new things for little M!  Elsie Marley's spring KCWC is just around the corner!   

Betty at the Bakery Dress

When Julie Bobbin posted about her Mad Men Challenge, I thought I'd be a crazy person and join in.  Sure I already had lots of other things planned, but why not go on Etsy, find and buy a vintage pattern and make a dress from it?  Why not eh?

I remembered this dress from Season 3 episode  "Seventy Twenty Three" when she meets up with her eventual new husband Henry Francis at a local bakery.  I loved its simplicity and that bright bold floral!  Totally not my normal silhouette, but something I was interested to try.

Source: www.tomandlorenzo.com

And the result!  Taken on a ridiculously hot day during a Sunday walk.  It was 25 degrees celsius.  Normal temp for this time of year? maybe 5.  It was gorgeous!

The pattern I used is actually from 1963, the same year that the episode takes place in.  

And just to add a bit to the vintage vibe, I tried to style my hair a bit like Betty's in the episode, It didn't stay in place too long, sans tons of styling product, but it still works I think.  Sadly, I had no shoes to go with it, so you'll have to excuse my pairing it with flats.

The pattern did vary a bit of course from the inspiration dress.  It had the bodice pieced, whereas the inspiration dress did not.  The neckline is also a bit different, which I wish in hindsight I had actually adjusted it for, I like the straighter boatneck and thinner shoulders of the inspiration dress.  The pattern did have the nice low back, but alas, not the lovely tie detail.

So I added them in.  I'm actually not sure how wearable the dress based solely on the pattern would have been without them, they definitely help keep the shoulders up and everything neat and in place.

So I'm pretty pleased with it.  I'm not 100% happy with the bodice fit, the band under the bust is a weird fit and had to be adjusted along with taking in the sides in a ton for my skinny self.  Vintage pattern dimensions are funny things.  The pattern is a size 12, and the waist was just perfect, but as I'm pretty boyish figured, my bust area definitely does not meet the pattern expectations.  But on the bright side, the skirt fit perfect!!  And I really like it.  I may use it with another future dress.

Oh and partway through our walk I found some cheap pearls to wear and got me an ice tea, just like Betty.

Other lessons from sewing from a vintage pattern are to sometimes just ignore the directions and go with what you know about piecing garments.  Some of the directions are way over complicated.  And while I suppose if you want to go for all the vintage details you could follow them,  but I got frustrated with some of them, and just did a simpler method the I already know. (i.e. with the waistline)  And sewing the back of the skit was particularly interesting with the little pleat, but once I laid it all out it made sense.

The whole dress is also fully underlined, a new experience for me, but definitely necessary for this lightweight cotton fabric.

So that's it!  I'll leave you all with a final photo from our walk.  It started to get a bit cooler so I had to add a sweater, and well, I was also carrying a small purse and occasionally a small child :)

Spring has Sprung Minna Blouse

The week before last here in good old Canada was ridiculously warm, like 20 degrees above normal, which should have inspired me to finish this blouse earlier.  But instead I waited until it was 2 degrees to finish and wear it!

Yet it is actually spring now (note the beginnings of plants amongst the old leaves in my still to be cleaned flower beds behind me), so I say this blouse is to celebrate spring regardless of the temperature!   I actually had to wear it with a sweater, boots and my purple tights.  The whole combo isn't to much, is it?

I saw this pattern via good ol Pinterest a while ago, and knew I had to try it.  It had cute sleeves and was a loser fit, which saves me some of the fitting woes I have tailoring things down to fit my tiny self.

It's the Minna Blouse from Salme Patterns, and it's a pretty good one!  It was pretty straight forward, although it was the first time I sewed something where I had to add in the seam allowances.  That went fine, except I didn't realize you had to add 1.5 inches to the bottom seam, not just the normal .5 inches, whoops!  But it's plenty long enough, probably because I actually added in 1 inch to the main bodice to accommodate my tallness.  I also had to redo the front pleat, for some reason I had made it half the required width and from reading the pattern again, I'm not sure if it was me or the pattern.  Easily fixable regardless

But anyway, I like the little sleeves, and it's pretty easy wearing.  I'm not much of a blouse wearer, but it just might be something I'd make again.  As perhaps indicated by my ridiculous smile in the photo below, yeesh!

I do rather like this fabric though, previously used to make two scarves (one seen here) and originally intended for a dress I never made, I think it is just nice and soft/drapy enough for this.

And it will be my first ever entry into Rae's Spring Top Sewalong! yay!

Anyone one else sewing spring tops yet?

Springtime progress and plans

Please excuse the bad photos, laptop is in the shop, so it's iPhone posting time! I had the urge to post regardless of the fact I have nothing finished to show.

So instead you all can peek in on my Mad Men challenge dress progress. Bodice done more or less, one skirt to go!

And just to add more fun, it's time again for Made by Rae's Spring Top Sew Along! I'm hoping to join in for the first time this year and so I've got two tops planned.

First is Salme Pattern's Minna blouse, all cut out waiting to be sewn.

Second is Sew Liberated's Mariposa Tee. Fabric picked, but that's all.

And I want to finish all of them before March is done. Crazy? Maybe, but I'm still game!

Sewing Famous, Kitchen Curtains and a Sweater!

Not much sewing these days, I think I'm not inspired to make anything aside from the dress for Julia Bobbin's Mad Man challenge.  And my pattern has not yet arrived.  Should I be worried?  I suspect it will be here this week.

In the interim, a few things have been happening, including this!

Yes, that's right, my birthday cardigan for the Mr. was featured as Project of the Week on Burdastyle's front page!  Woo, it sure was odd to go to the site and see ones husband staring back at you!  Pretty cool I say, and I believe I may have a few new followers because of it (welcome!)  I think I may just have to make more things for the Mr., and I have ideas a brewing!

In other sewing news, I finally whipped out these curtains for my kitchen cart to hide some of the clutter.  Sooo dead simple, and yet it's surprising how long it takes to finish such simple things!  Fabric is Alexander Henry's Farmers Market.

Lastly, I finally finished knitting my first sweater!

Turned out ok, although I'd make some changes in hindsight.  It's a bit too short for my taste (although its supposed to be) and I think the shape may make my shoulders look wide.

But I learned a lot!  It's super warm and cozy (maybe too much) as it's made from wool.  But it was a relatively quick knit being soo chunky.  Pattern is the One Button Wonder from Sirdar's Big Softie Knits for Beginners.

Now I think I might go back to spring sewing project planning!